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Updated: June 22, 2025
Sergeant Mahony told us a curious tale, too, of the way in which Father M'Fadden dealt with the people of the neighbouring parish of Falcarragh. He would go down to the parish boundary, if he wanted to address the people of Falcarragh, and stand over the line, with one foot in each parish! At our request Sergeant Mahony made some remarks in Irish; very wooing and winning they were in sound.
A small number of them had gone into Court and had judicial rents fixed; and it was on the contention promoted by the two priests, through these judicial tenants, he said, that all the difficulty hinged. Father M'Fadden of Glena, who thought the quarrel unjustifiable and silly, had an interview with Mr. Blane, M.P., and with Father Stephens, and tried to arrange it all.
I landed at Kingstown with Lord Ernest Hamilton, M.P. for North Tyrone, with whom I have arranged an expedition to Gweedore in Donegal, one of the most ill-famed of the "congested districts" of Ireland, and just now made a point of special interest by the arrest of Father M'Fadden, the parish priest of the place, for "criminally conspiring to compel and induce certain tenants not to fulfil their legal obligations."
"What was done with it, then?" "Oh! that I can't tell ye. It was spent for the people some way. You must ask Father M'Fadden. He is the fund in Gweedore, just as he is the law in Gweedore. Oh! they came from all parts to see the great ruin of the flood at Gweedore. They did, indeed.
Oh no; they'll never be locked up, Father M'Fadden and Mr. Blane. And the people here at Letterkenny, they've more sinse than at Dunfanaghy. Have you heard of the champagne?" Upon this he proceeded to tell me, as a grand joke, that Father M'Fadden and Mr.
Burke evidently thinks, though he did not say so, that Father Stephens has been spoiled of his sleep by the laurels of Father M'Fadden of Gweedore. He is to be tried at Dunfanaghy on Tuesday, and there are now 150 troops quartered there Rifles and Hussars. "Are they not boycotted?" I asked. "No. The people rather enjoy the bustle and the show, not to speak of the money the soldiers spend."
We had some lovely music, however, within doors this morning; and, in spite of the snow and the chill wind, a little fairy of a girl, with her groom, went off like mad across country on her pony, "Guinea Pig," to fetch the mails from Newtown-Stewart. Not long after breakfast came in from Letterkenny Sergeant Mahony of the constabulary, on whose testimony Father M'Fadden was convicted.
He was most courteously received by Father M'Fadden. To my query why the Courts could not intervene to save the priests from taking all this trouble on themselves between the owners and the occupiers of the land, Father M'Fadden at first replied that the Courts had no power to intervene where, as in many cases in Gweedore, the holdings are subdivided.
Olphert, "but I have a great respect for priests who do their duty; and the conduct of Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, in countenancing this man, who tried to overthrow the authority of Father M'Fadden of Glena, excited my indignation. As to what is going on now," said Mr. Olphert, "it is to Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, and to Father Stephens here, that the trouble is chiefly to be charged."
There were five people that couldn't get out in time, and were drowned two old people and three children, young people. It was a great flood. And Father M'Fadden wrote about it oh, he is a clever priest with the pen and they made a great subscription in London for the poor people and the chapel.
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